Introduction

The Managed Metadata service application allows us to centrally manage Metadata
and content types which can be shared across SharePoint Farms, Web Applications,
Site Collections, Sites and Lists.

Managed Metadata service application offers these two features per service
application:

Content type Hub

Term store Management

Content Type Hub:

Content Type Hub allows the centralization and sharing of Content Types
through the Managed Metadata Service Application. In SharePoint 2007 content
types were bound to site collections. This was a pain since we had to create
content types from the scratch when moving from one site collection to another.
Now in SharePoint 2010 with managed metadata service application's content
type hub feature you can centrally manage content types, share and re-use
them across Farm, Web applications and site collections.

By definitions, content type Hub is the site collection which will host
the content types that are shared. Content type syndication is the process
of sharing the content type across the enterprise.

Term Store Management:

MMS provides Term store management tool to collect and share terms farm
wide which makes the Managing & Finding content easier. These terms can
be predefined and controlled centrally by a small number of persons (taxonomy)
or opened to all users (folksonomy). You can use these terms across your
web applications as metadata columns and tags.

Table
of Contents

1.0 Creating a
new Managed Metadata Service Application

1.1 Start the MMS
Web Service

1.2 Set the MMS
connection for Term Store

2.0 Managing Content
Type HUB

2.1 How to Publish Content
Type?

2.2 FAQ’s on Content
Type Hub

2.3 Troubleshooting
Content Type Hub

3.0 Term Store
Management

3.1 Term Store
Definitions

3.2 Manipulating
Terms in Term Store

3. 3 Metadata Navigation
on SharePoint lists

3.4 Consuming Metadata
in Lists/Libraries

3.5 Limitations
& Boundaries

3.6 Local Term Store

1.0 Creating a new Managed Metadata
Service Application

1. Go to Central Administration,
Click on Application Management
and then click on Manage service
applications link.

2. In the ribbon, Click on the
New item and select
Managed Metadata Service.

2) Enter a name for Managed Metadata Service, say "Managed Metadata
Service". Fill the other details such as database server name (DB Server
of SharePoint), Managed Metadata service’s database name.

Determine
location of Content Type Hub:Be aware when entering
the content type hub when creating Managed Metadata service application.
You can’t simply change the content type hub afterwards.
(Only option left is recreating the MMS service). Make sure you
are typing the correct URL without any typo and without page names like
default.aspx Click OK button
at the bottom to create Managed Metadata service application.

1.1 Start the MMS Web Service

Navigate to Central Administration >> System
Settings >> Manage services on server and start the Managed Metadata
Web Service

If you failed
to do the above step, Then you can expect the below errors while accessing
Term store or MMS Service connection.

1.2 Set the MMS connection
for Term Store

As a final step, let’s set the default location for our term store by
going to:

Central Administration >>
Manage Service Applications and click Managed Metadata Service Connection
and then “Properties” from the ribbon.

Tick the Check box “This service
application is the default storage location for column specific term
sets.” and click OK button at the bottom to save the changes.

If you failed to do the above steps, you will get:
The Default Term store for this site cannot be identified. Error
when you try to add a new Managed Metadata column in lists.

Now we have successfully setup Managed Metadata Service, let’s get into
the Term Store Management tool by navigating to on the newly created
Managed Metadata Service Application.

2.0 Managing Content
Type HUB

Content Type Hub is a central location where you can manage and publish
your content types to the subscribed sites. We have to specify the location
of content type hub during setting up the MMS service application.

2.1 How to Publish Content
Type?

In order to maintain the consistency and avoid rework content types
must be published from the content type hub and can be consumed from
other site collections.

Activating Content Hub Feature

Important:
In the content type hub, make sure
Content type syndication Hub
feature is activated under the site collection features. Otherwise
you will not get options to publish content types. Activate this feature
only in CT HUB.Publishing a Content Type

Go to the Content Type Hub site, create required content types.

Once done, go to Site Actions
>>Site Settings. Click on Site content types Under Galleries.

In Settings section of Content type Click on "Manage publishing for this content
type" and On Content type publishing selects "Publish" and clicks on
"OK" button.

Click the Manage content type publishing and Check the Publish Radio button
and say OK.

Content type is published,
but not available in other site collections?

After this we may require to run Timer jobs manually first time to publish
the content type. Go to "SharePoint 2010 Central Administration" ->
Click on Monitoring -> Click on Review job definitions.

There are 3 timer jobs that will run at pre-defined intervals to push
the content types across to other site collections that share the same
Web Application.

In Job Definitions run the jobs in following order

1.Content Type Hub

2.Content Type Subscriber

3.Content Type Subscriber job for publishing site (Optional)

Once done, you will find the content the Site Content type which we
created in above Site Collection in any of the site collections subscribed
to content type Hub. Just go to the Site Actions
>> Site Settings, Under
the Galleries click the Site Content Types.

2.2 FAQ’s on Content Type
Hub

·What will happen
when you Un-Publish a Content Type?

This will create local copies of the content type and the data will
be intact.

·Can I change
the content type from Subscribed sites?

No. You can’t change the synchronized content Type inside the subscribed
Site Collections because the published content types from Hub will be
in Read-Only mode in the subscribed sites. You have to do such changes
from the Content type hub only.

·
Does it support document templates/Document Sets? Yes, it supports both. But make sure document set feature
is activated in the target site. This applies to all other features
as well.

Yes, you can associate workflows with content types. The association
will be published but not the workflow itself.

·What's the case
when I have multiple MMS service application?

The default MMS gets the priority and will be your content type hub.

·What will happen
when a column is removed from Content Type in Content Type Hub?

When deleted and re-published in Content type Hub, same column will
be removed from the Site Content Type of the subscribed sites.

2.3 Troubleshooting Content
Type Hub

Checking Error Logs

If you want to check for problems you can check at the Publisher or
at the Subscriber sides. Click on the site collection’s Site Settings.
Under the Site Collection Administration click on Content type service
application error log.

3.0 Term Store Management

SharePoint Server 2010 includes the Term Store Management Tool, which
you use to create and manage term sets. If you have the appropriate
permissions, you can use the Term Store Management Tool to manipulate
terms & keywords.

Before diving into Term store, Lets familiarize our self with some definitions.

3.1 Term Store Definitions

Term Store: This is the
database in which our managed metadata is stored in.

Taxonomy vs. Folksonomy

“Taxonomy” are predefined words or phrases that can only be created
by users with the appropriate permissions and are often organized into
a hierarchy.

“Folksonomy” are words or phrases that have been added by the end user. All
enterprise keywords are part of a single, non-hierarchical term set
called the keyword set.

Term Group: is a collection
of Term Sets. A Term store can have multiple groups. Security is set
on this level.

Term Set: A term set is
a collection of related terms

Term: A term is a word
or phrase that can be associated with an item in SharePoint Server 2010

Some Important Properties:

Available for Tagging –
Checkbox determines whether the particular term set/term is enabled
or not.

Open vs. Closed Term Sets:
Closed terms sets are not open for modifications.

Term Group Managers vs. Contributors
- Both can contribute to Term set, but Group Managers can add users
to either of the group.

3.2 Manipulating Terms
in Term Store

Once you have the MMS Ready, you can Import, create/Manipulate items
inside.

Get in to the Term store from Central Admin
>> Application Management
>> Service Applications
>> click the Managed Metadata
Service Application

Get in to the settings page of the desired List/Library. Click on Metadata
Navigation Settings

Now choose the Metadata field (In my case it was: Region) in both options

Click OK button at the top to save the changes

Now see it in action from left navigation.

Unable to find "Metadata Navigation Settings" in Document Library/List Settings?
You have to Enable the feature: Metadata Navigation and Filtering. Go to: Site Settings >> Manage Site Features >> activate “Metadata Navigation and Filtering” feature!

3.4 Consuming Metadata
in Lists/Libraries

Now we have our Metadata ready. Let’s create a metadata column in a
list to consume the metadata from metadata store.

Create a List and add Metadata
column

Click on “Create Column” on the desired list/library.

Give a name to the column. Select the column type as
Managed Metadata.

Scroll to the bottom and select the desired Term set /Term from the Term
store under the Term Set Settings

Now we can see the data from the term store as below:
That’s all. We are done.

3.5 Limitations & Boundaries

Limitations:

1.No InfoPath Support

2.No SharePoint Workspace support

3.You can’t Edit Managed Metadata columns in Datasheet view

4.No built-in support for search/refine result sets based on synonyms

5.In view Filters can't use Begins with or contains operators.

6.Can't be used in calculated columns

7.Local term stores will lose when you backup/restore (use Export-SPMetaDataWebServicePartitionData/Import-SPMetadataWebServicePartitionData)

8.Office 2003/2007 clients not supported.

9.In SPD workflows you can’t directly use the name of the term,
but you have to use the GUID of the term.

10.You can’t add Managed Metadata columns from SharePoint designer.

11.Blank template based root sites in a site collection doesn’t
work with Managed Metadata

Boundaries

·7 Levels of Hierarchy

·30,000 TERMS per TERM Set

·1,000 TERM Sets in a TERM Store

·1000000 TERMS in a TERM Store

·250 Terms in a single taxonomy field

3.6 Local Term Store

Local term sets are created within the context
of a site collection.

While creating a Metadata column, if you choose “Customize your term
set” option, this creates a Local terms store available to all the users
scoped with in the current site collection.

To manipulate local term store you need to have either full control
or site collection admin rights.

SolidQ Managed Metadata Exporter
for SharePoint 2010

This tool helps you to manage managed metadata in SharePoint 2010. It
can create and delete terms and term sets, import term sets, EXPORT
term sets in a .csv file http://metadataexportsps.codeplex.com/

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10 comments:

Hi salaudeen can you give some explanation on how to achieve "re-assign" task in a share point designer 2010 workflow?? The user can choose a name from people picker and click the re-assign button and the task will be assigned to them. This is what i need to know. Please let me know. Thanks in advance.

I am unable to rename the group terms and/or term sets on Central admin. Also, i don't see the term store in site collections. I am an admin on all the site and CA as well.Please let me know what is going wrong.

great post! do you know is there a way to organzie the data better? for example we have tons of terms and you just have to scroll and scroll through all the options in the form. Is it possible to make it a pop-up box to show more items at once?

Hi when I try to start this service the page goes to processing and just hangs there. Also I noticed that the SharePoint Foundation web application service will get stuck in provisioning. I forced it to online with Powershell but I think there is still something stuck/hanging. Any thoughts?

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